Social email marketing Archives - Social Email Marketing

Online marketing is not about one channel or even one platform. The web has and will continue to fundamentally alter what marketing and customer service means both to advertisers and consumers. To both parties, the web offers more freedom, creativity and accessibility. On the marketer’s side, the reality of a multi-channel world requires a lot more than just adapting traditional marketing tactics from old media channels. It means changing how we think and act.

For the consumer, it means a fundamental shift of power has occurred putting them in the driving seat and the onus on brands to be where the consumer wants them with what they want, when they want it.

A holistic approach is now required to ensure that a brand is reaching consumers and that includes the art of listening as much as it does pitching. Both email and social media are indeed two-way communication channels, but only if you are really listening. If you aren’t listening to both channels then you are only getting half the value from them.

The most exciting thing to me about social and email marketing is that they go so well together. Not only do they compliment each other well, but they open up a world of possibilities and bring up the level of service for the customer in both pre-sales and post-sales support. People can get quick answers while researching a sale and fast help if they need it afterwards — that’s a good thing for the consumer and for the brand. Social and email channels can be employed effectively to provide better experiences and stronger relationships.

Those in the marketing industry can’t get cocky about what we do and don’t know about any of these channels. How often do you read a new survey which indicates that too few are leveraging such things as email segmentation, social monitoring or even something as seemingly revolutionary as mobile marketing via smartphones? Are marketers talking the walk when it comes to the new multi-channel world we now live in?

A reality check is always a good thing and apparently one has just been issued via a survey from Leads United (LEWIS PR) of Antwerp, Belgium. According to a survey of 70 marketing and communications professionals in Belgium, it seems social media is a channel they may be missing the boat on.

Here’s a quick snapshot of some stats from the survey:

Only 27% of respondent’s companies have a social media policy in place
Only 16% of the interviewed “communication professionals” use social media for crisis communication
Only 46% of the interviewed parties actually use social media monitoring

Even if your company is primarily focused on email marketing, you still should have the above bases covered, don’t you think?

You can read J-P De Clerk’s analysis of the survey results here.

While you are there, read up on Social Media Day in Antwerp on June 30th! A great place for you to network with social marketing pros such as Olivier Blanchard – he’ll be conducting a workshop on social media at the event!

Over the past year proponents of email marketing have been on the defensive a great deal. Challenges from both social media advocates and half-baked pundits suggesting that email is on the way out, have put a real burr under the saddle of email marketing people.

I’m frankly tired of the entire discussion since I don’t believe there is a clear delineation between Facebook or Twitter and email. All three are social channels and thus, social media. The sooner we move on from this red herring and focus more on the specific strengths of each channel (judged on its own merit) the better. The whole social vs. email scuffle simply distracts us from more practical and more pressing issues.

Case in point, eMarketer recently reported research from a few sources regarding what channel was preferred by consumers for deals. The basic question was whether or not people were interested in finding deals on social media sites. Surveys cited in the post trying to answer that question came up with different results.

One by daily deal site Eversave, asked American female social network users what activities Facebook is useful for and found that 75% thought it was good for learning about deals from favourite brands.

However, research by ForeSee Results, back in late 2010 found 64% of people preferred to hear about sales and promotions via email while only 8% had a preference for Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. This backed up earlier research by CrossView, which showed that 37% preferred promotional emails over 9% who had a preference for social media.

So which is it? Well, that depends doesn’t it? We’ve got a score here of two polls to one, but so what? It’s interesting that in two of the polls the percentage of those who preferred channels such as Facebook was about the same at just under 10%. But really, without picking through the surveys with tweezers, we are basically spreading sheep entrails out to read.

eMarketer observes (rightfully) that more consumers subscribe to retail email accounts than follow retailers on social sites. That’s a very valid observation, but let’s not forget that social is a powerful word-of-mouth amplifier and as brands catch on to this they hopefully will leverage those channels to spread the word about deals and promotions.

It’s not that there isn’t any worth at all in these surveys. They do offer some insight and may even be helpful to some in building a case for apportioning marketing resources. It’s the debate that’s pretty much useless. While we’re busy struggling over what channel is best overall, we are doing a disservice to clients and consumers alike by not focusing all our attention on leveraging the individual strengths possessed by each channel.